Babysitting Duty
by TheLordismyGod
Summary: Caught off-guard, Pepper has to call upon some unconventional help.


**So… hi, I guess. This is my first foray into Marvel fanfiction and I'm honestly a little nervous despite having been writing fanfiction for about 4 years now. I know my audience will be vastly different and I'm just worried because I want to make sure I do the story right, mainly with characterization because I'm working with very different characters and characterization is my weakness. Morgan was SO hard to characterize, we barely see her in Endgame and I didn't have a lot to go on, so I tried mixing Tony Stark with a five year old girl. Also my writing style is **_**mostly **_**in the pattern of dialog-action-dialogue, I like to try and let actions speak for themselves, so if you like paragraphs upon paragraphs of prose, that's not me. **

**I am a casual fan of the movies and I've never read the comics, but because I am OCD about a lot of things particularly timelines and vague background details, I did research some of that. Hopefully I got most of it right, I had to do a lot of interpretation.**

**Anyways, I had this idea after watching Endgame and seeing posts on Tumblr with Peter Parker and Morgan Stark. I absolutely love the idea of Peter becoming a father/brother figure for Morgan in the wake of Tony's death. So, this is the start of that. It takes place between Endgame and Far From Home.**

* * *

Life had gotten relatively back normal ever since Pepper had moved back to New York. She couldn't live in their cabin in Georgia anymore. It reminded her too much of Tony.

She had built a small Stark Industries office building in the middle of Manhattan.

"Mommy!" Morgan ran into her mother's office.

Pepper sighed right as another call came through on the holophone on her desk. It was Scott Lang.

"Hold on, Morgan."

She had no idea why he would be calling, why would he be calling?

The threats to the world had been rather quiet ever since Tony had snapped Thanos and his army back into the soul world. From the brief, albeit very complicated and big-word-ridden explanation given to her by Bruce and Stephen on how the infinity stones worked, she was vaguely able to grasp that they were still alive. She hoped it was like hell for them.

She answered the call. "Hello Scott." she said, hitching a smile on her face.

"Mommy!" Morgan insisted.

Pepper held up a finger in Morgan's direction, trying to signal her to wait.

The blue hued Scott appeared from the waist up on her desk. He appeared to be fidgeting with something.

"Is this thing working?" he asked in a crackly voice.

"Yes, it is, Scott can you hear or see me?" she asked.

He finally focused on her. "Oh! Hi, uh, Mrs. Stark? Or… do you prefer Miss Potts again? I'm sorry, I don't-" Upon noticing her reaction, Scott regretted saying anything. Pepper hung her head briefly before looking up again and answering.

"Pepper is fine." she replied curtly. "What did you need?"

"Right. Well I, uh just haven't heard anything from anyone on what our next mission is."

Pepper's eyebrows went up in confusion. "I'm sorry, mission?"

"Well yeah, Tony was the one giving out orders before… but now that he's gone, I guess that falls to you? Or am I wrong? I could be, I've been on house arrest for 2 years and only just got out but then I got stuck in the quantum realm for 5 hours, but it's been 5 years out here, so I have a lot to catch up on."

"Ah." Pepper nodded in understanding. "I don't call the shots. I would ask whoever is at the Avengers Compound, in fact you could probably help whoever's left with rebuilding it."

Scott gave a thumbs up. "Right. I'll go do that."

"Sounds good." Pepper smiled and hung up.

Pepper turned and addressed her daughter, who had walked up to her chair. "Yes, dear?"

Morgan looked indignant. "I'm bored. Your office is boring."

Pepper sighed. "I know, I still have to spruce up the place a little." she smiled as she put a hand on Morgan's head and stood up.

Just then Happy walked in, though he looked like he had been running and was out of breath.

"Morgan is fast. Have you called to have the elevators fixed yet?" Happy huffed, leaning forward slightly with a hand on his chest.

Happy still helped her out with Morgan occasionally but recently he had become busier as the Stark Industries' Head of Security and Asset Manager.

"Hi Happy." Pepper walked around her desk and greeted him. "Yes, there's a work order to get the elevators working again."

"Ok good." He straightened up. "Also, have you gotten Morgan's babysitter lined up?"

Pepper drew a blank. "For what?"

"Don't you remember? We were going to meet with everyone on the new org chart." He said slowly.

Pepper put a hand to her face and slowly turned around and walked back toward her desk. "ooohhh, is that today?"

"Yes."

She sighed. "I completely forgot; I've just been so busy recently." She picked up the phone.

Half an hour and a lunchtime later, she still hadn't gotten any babysitter lined up. They were all busy because it was too short notice. And Pepper and Happy had to leave in an hour.

Pepper hung up the phone on the last one. "They're all busy." She looked over at Happy and Morgan, who were sitting in the cushy chairs in front of her desk finishing their cheeseburgers.

"Well we can't bring her with, it will be incredibly boring for her and you and I will both be busy." Happy said.

Pepper sighed in frustration as she put her head in her hands. "I know."

Suddenly, an idea came to her. It was a little unconventional, but it might work.

"I know one more person we could try." She said as she lifted up the phone again.

* * *

"Whoa!" Peter dodged a Stradivarius that had been thrown at him and smashed against the wall. "You know that's a very expensive violin!" he yelled out; the sound just slightly muffled by his Iron Spider suit's mask.

The thugs robbing the music store didn't answer, they were too busy shooting their guns at the wall where Peter had been seconds before.

"You must not be the talkative thieves then, that's fine." Peter dodged the bullet spray as he jumped into the middle of where most of them were standing and began fighting them.

"Normally they tell me to shut up because I talk too much." His iron spider legs came out and wacked the two thugs behind him clear across the room, knocking them out.

"You guys aren't very smart either, I don't know why you'd want to rob a music store, there are much better places you could be stealing from."

Suddenly the HUD inside his mask lit up and the suit's AI, Karen, spoke. "Peter, you have a call incoming from Ms. Potts."

"What? Don't a-ah!-nswer it!" he dodged another heavy musical instrument thrown at him from one of the large thugs and shot some webbing at his face to slow him down.

"She's marked it as urgent, Peter." Karen replied.

Peter let his spider sense take over the combat for a moment and thought about it. Why would Pepper be calling him urgently? Did she have a mission for him? That would be the perfect thing to take his mind off Tony's death. Something he had not been able to stop thinking about.

"Answer it." He decided.

"Peter?" Pepper's voice came through his suit's communication system. She sounded frantic.

"Hi Ms. Potts!" he dodged another thief's punch and threw his hand out.

'_Thwip!'_

Another one taken care of, webbed against the wall.

"Hi Peter…"

A pause.

"are you busy?"

Peter flipped over another thief and knocked him down. "N-no! I'm free! Why do you ask?"

"Well, I'm hearing crashing and grunts and-never mind. Listen, could you do me a really huge favor?"

"Yeah sure, anything." He dodged just as another thief used a violin as a club and swung it at him.

"I have some important business to attend to for a few hours, but Morgan's usual babysitters are not available on such short notice. Could you possibly come and watch her for a few hours?"

Immediately Peter wanted to say yes. Yes, because Morgan had spent the last 5 years with Tony. Yes, because there were so many things he had wanted to say to Tony but couldn't. He had just got him back, albeit in the middle of the battle, when he was ripped away again.

This time for good.

Morgan was his ticket to beginning to heal that wound.

"Sure! Absolutely!" he said, perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

"Great! Oh, thank you Peter! I've sent you our home address."

"So when do you want me over there?" Peter asked.

"Right now, if possible."

"Uhhh..." Peter slowly backed up as he watched a large thug bear down on him. "Give me a few minutes, then I'll be right over."

"Thanks Peter." Pepper hung up.

Peter quickly shot a web at the thug's face, which slowed him down. He jumped into the air while simultaneously shooting a web string at the thug's feet and hoisting him into the air with him.

He flew over a beam in the store and pulled hard, suspending the thug upside down. He quickly fastened the other end of the string and webbed him up completely so he could not move.

He looked around. All the thugs that had attacked the store were either webbed up, knocked out, or groaning and unable to move. "Anyone else? No? Ok, cool. I need to go babysit a kid so…"

He pointed finger guns at the thug he had just hung up as he backed out of the store.

"hang tight till the police can come babysit you."

* * *

Pepper hung the phone up.

"Ok, Peter can watch you." She said as she stood up.

"Who's Peter?" Morgan asked with her mouth full of cheeseburger.

Pepper came over and sat in the chair next to her. "Don't you remember? You met him at…daddy's funeral…"

"Oh, yeah I remember him." Morgan swallowed.

"He's a great kid." Pepper said, trying to reassure her. "He used to… work with daddy a lot."

"Really?" Morgan looked up at her, interested now.

"Yeah, he loved daddy."

Happy suddenly looked at his watch and stood up. "We gotta get going." He started cleaning away the trash.

"Right, I'll get Morgan home and then meet you there in half an hour."

Pepper drove Morgan back home and no sooner were they were back home when the doorbell rang.

"That must be Peter." She looked at Morgan who followed her hesitantly as she walked to the door.

Pepper opened it and there stood Peter, dressed in a blue hoodie and jeans, wearing a backpack.

She smiled. "Hello Peter, thanks so much for coming on such short notice."

He grinned back. "It's no problem." Pepper stepped aside and began gathering her things off the dresser next to the front door and began running through what Peter would need to know.

"Ok, emergency numbers are on the fridge in the kitchen, Morgan's bedtime is 8-actually… never mind, that doesn't matter, I should definitely be back before then."

She held a hand to her forehead, thinking. "Uhh, and don't let her play video games on the X-station for more than a couple hours, if she or you get hungry there's food in the cupboard and… that should be everything."

She turned around and knelt down in front of Morgan.

"Ok, mommy's gotta go now, but Peter will watch you while I'm gone." She said as she rubbed Morgan's shoulder.

"Ok," Morgan sighed.

Pepper stood up and faced Peter again. "Thanks again." She said as she passed him and stepped out the door.

"No problem. Bye." Peter waved as he shut the door after her.

He turned around and looked at Morgan again and smiled. She was still just standing there looking at him, not quite happy, not quite sad either.

"Are you my big brother daddy always talked about?" She spoke suddenly.

Immediately Peter went into an emotional spiral. Tony had considered him his _son? _

"W-what?" he asked, the squeak in his voice surprised even him and made him stop talking.

"Yeah, he was always talking about you…"

"H-he was?" There was that squeak again. To hide it, Peter rushed forward and knelt down in front of Morgan.

"What would he say?" he asked, maybe a little desperately.

"I dunno, jus' that he really loved you…" she shrugged.

Peter grinned, trying not to let the tears come. "Oh, well… I… loved him too."

He sniffed and stood up again and shrugged his shoulders slowly. "So…. What do you like to do for fun?"

Morgan's idea of fun, of course being a 5 year old girl, was a mix between dollhouse and "Save the World." She said Peter could be Iron Man. "Daddy would've wanted you to have it." She said, handing him her play mask.

Peter could sense the gravity with which she spoke the words. "I will make him proud." He said solemnly, getting a little choked up.

After a few games of play acting, with Morgan being the 'bad guy' and Peter being Iron Man, he realized he was hungry.

"Are you hungry?" he asked suddenly.

Morgan put the action figure down. "A little."

Peter nodded. "I am too, I'll go see what I can make downstairs."

"Ok." Morgan continued playing as Peter stood up and left the room.

He rummaged downstairs for a little while before finding some Kraft mac and cheese. That should be easy enough. He started the water boiling on the stove and after a few minutes, poured the noodles in.

"BOO!"

Somehow caught completely and utterly off guard for the first time in a very long time, Peter yelped and jumped 6 feet into the air, flipping around and sticking to the ceiling in his fight stance.

Upside down, he could see it was just Morgan wearing her Iron Man mask. She giggled loudly like a witch and then took the mask off as she looked up at him, head tilted, likely in confusion.

"Why are you on the ceiling?" she asked, head still tilted.

Peter thought a more useful question would've been _how_.

"Because… you scared me!" he said indignantly. "Somehow…" he continued, talking more to himself now. "Why didn't my spider sense work?" he asked himself, looking at his free hand, as if that would give him his answer.

"What's a spider sense?" Morgan asked as Peter jumped down and flipped over onto his feet.

"It's this thing I have…it allows me to sense danger…" Peter looked at her through half closed eyes. "It probably didn't go off because you weren't a real danger…"

He turned around and continued stirring the mac n cheese, still talking to himself. "That's pretty cool actually, it's able to differentiate I guess…"

Morgan came and stood in front of the stove next to him. "_How_ were you on the ceiling?" she asked, looking at him suspiciously.

Peter realized there was no way he could hide his identity now. "Because…" he knelt down and gripped her shoulders, looking into her eyes, trying to convey a sense of urgency. "Morgan, I'm going to tell you something that you need to promise me you won't tell anyone else."

Morgan looked back at him with the same sense of urgency. "I promise." She whispered.

Peter inhaled sharply. "I'm Spider-Man."

Morgan grinned widely, and gasped. "Really?"

Peter scoffed, as if the sticking to the ceiling part wasn't a dead giveaway. "Yeah, really."

"That's so cool!" she said as Peter stood up and turned back to the mac and cheese. Suddenly she scrunched up her face and pursed her lips in disgust.

"Do you shoot webs out of your butt?" she asked.

Peter laughed. "Wh- no! no, I shoot webs out of my hands."

"Show me."

"No, your mom would kill me if I webbed up your house." He mixed in the cheese. "Go sit down, it's almost ready."

Morgan went and sat down at the dining room table and soon Peter brought two bowls over and they ate dinner.

They had just finished when the front door opened and Pepper walked in. "Peter!? Morgan!? I'm home!"

She noticed them sitting at the dining room table. "There you are, how'd it go?"

"It went great, Morgan showed me her action figures and we saved the world." Peter said, turning in his seat.

"Oh, did you?" Pepper asked, looking at Morgan, who grinned back at her and nodded.

"Morgan wasn't too much trouble?"

"No, she was an absolute angel." Peter said, smiling and looking at Morgan knowingly.

Suddenly, Peter jumped up from his seat. "I gotta go pack!" he said running over to the door and hurriedly putting his shoes on.

"Oh?" Pepper raised an eyebrow at him as he passed her. "Where are you going?"

"To Europe for a school trip." He replied, opening the door as Morgan and Pepper followed him.

"Well, that should be fun." Pepper smiled at him. "Oh! I almost forgot, here." She pulled a $20 out of her pocket and handed it to him.

"Thanks again." She smiled.

Peter took it and looked like he might try and give it back, but then reconsidered. "Thanks so much, bye, bye Morgan!" Peter waved at her and rushed out the door and Pepper closed it after him.

She turned around and faced Morgan.

"I like him, mommy."

Pepper smiled and scooped her up. "Oh good, I'll be sure to put him at the top of your favorite babysitters list."

Morgan didn't answer as she was too busy laughing from her mother's tickling.


End file.
